


(let’s hang out - TO THE DEATH)

by softly (alexenglish)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Aromantic Louis, Canon Compliant, Hiatus, M/M, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 04:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexenglish/pseuds/softly
Summary: i don’t know what the fuck true love even is but i do want to hang out with you for basically the rest of my life.





	(let’s hang out - TO THE DEATH)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firefall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefall/gifts).



> [a softer world project](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/asofterworld)

 

“Never again,” Niall groans, dropping on top of Louis with a pathetic exhale. He’s all bones and edges so they squirm until Niall’s lying between Louis’ legs, face planted on his chest. 

His breath is warm and damp where he’s mouth-breathing against Louis’ sternum, but his hair’s soft and he’s very comfortable despite the fact that their hipbones are pressed together at their sharpest points, so Louis doesn’t push him away or tell him to… stop breathing.

Niall would probably listen, if Louis told him to stop breathing. Just hold his breath until he couldn’t anymore, then laugh about it until he was purple in the face. He’s a good lad like that.

“Hmm?” Louis prompts, after Niall’s been quietly watching the football game on telly for a moment. Louis’ team is quite behind, he stopped paying attention awhile ago. Louis rubs little circles into Niall’s scalp with the pads of his fingers, and waits.

“Let Haz talk me into a blind date with some prat he knows.” Niall scoffs, air whooshing out of him harshly. Louis can feel it over his shirt, feel the way Niall’s body flattens out from it. “Wasn’t fun.”

 _Date_ , eck. Louis’ skin goes tight, complicated emotion making itself known at the back of his head. He feels the ridiculous urge to demand why Harry would even  _do that_ , considering Niall’s perfectly fine as-is. Why date someone when… Well.

“Dating is truly overrated, anyway.” He hopes it’s more reassuring than sour, but he doesn’t know if his tone’s right. It’s hard to tell. “Relationships, eh.”

Niall doesn’t say anything for a moment, then Louis feels him shrug. “Guess so.”

“What’s so great then?” Louis asks, trying to keep his voice from jumping higher and louder the way it does when he’s irritated. Niall’s lying right on top of him, ear to his chest. 

“Uhm.” Niall sits up and narrows his eyes at Louis. The look makes Louis’ cheeks flush self-consciously, but he bites the inside of his cheek and raises his eyebrows. 

“Well?”

“Shuddup, I’m thinking.” Niall shuffles back so he’s not between Louis’ legs, curling up on the far end of the sofa. There’s enough light to see how he’s folded his hands in his sleeves, the way his cheeks are red. Louis almost wants to take it back, but he doesn’t. He waits.

“There’s nothing to think about,” Louis says, after a few minutes of Niall’s frowning. It might have been unfair, to demand that Niall try and name the perks of a relationship when he’s never really had one long-term. “It’s all –” Louis waves his hand dismissively. 

“Don’t you miss it?” Niall asks, eyes on the telly as he bites at his cuticles. Louis leans forward and swats his hand to stop him. Niall frowns sharply, drops his hand. 

“No,” Louis says, with a sniff. He misses Eleanor,  _sure_ , but like.. “It doesn’t make me feel any different. Being in, or out. S’like, a built in hang out buddy – someone you’re guaranteed to fuck, but like…”

“Love’s supposed to be different, though,” Niall says. There’s still a discontent knit between his eyebrows. Louis sighs. 

“It is, innit?” Louis doesn’t really know. Which was the problem all along, wasn’t it? Supposed to feel one way and just… not. El deserved better than that. Better than someone who didn’t really feel like she was more than a best friend. 

Niall stares at him. 

“I dunno,” Louis says, with a shrug, sitting up so he can tuck his feet under him. “It’s just not that great. It’s chillin’ and talking and –” he gestures towards the television with a loose wrist – “watching telly.”

There’s a beat of silence as Niall chews at his bottom lip, still frowning. Louis unfolds and sits up properly, grabs his grinder off the coffee table so he can fidget with it.

“What about like, butterflies and whatever?” he asks, after a moment. 

Louis sighs and pokes inside his grinder. There’s enough left for a joint, so he sets to it. “I dunno,” he admits. 

“I thought you were in love with El?” It sounds like an accusation. Louis flushes so hard the back of his neck goes hot. 

“I was,” he snaps. Just not in the right way, not in the way she wanted. Not in the way she deserved. Someday she’ll meet someone who feels more than contentment when they’re around her. Someone who’s in love, like real and true, fiery love. Not the kind that simmers on low for eternity. 

“But?” Niall prompts, back to chewing at his thumb nail. This time, Louis doesn’t stop him.

Louis ignores him whilst he rolls the joint, poking the weed into a neat pile and then rolling it up tightly before licking the paper and sealing it. He sticks it behind his ear, turns to Niall. 

“Well, Nialler,” he says, as condescending as he can. “There’s different kinds of ways to love someone. Sometimes it isn’t all butterflies and obsessive thinking. Sometimes all it does is  _exist_ as a feeling you have.”

“How’s that…?” Niall squints at him, and Louis feels dangerously close to being ill all of a sudden. They’re edging slowly towards to a conversation Louis doesn’t want to have. A conversation he knows he’ll have with Niall, if Niall pushes for it. 

“Just is,” Louis says, leaping up and grabbing his lighter. He has to walk past Niall to get to the sliding glass door so he can smoke, so he stalls a bit. “Feels different for different people, but sometimes it looks the same. El and I didn’t do anything you and I wouldn’t do.”

Niall’s cheeks are considerably more red when he looks up at Louis. “’Cept like, snog.”

Louis chuckles. “Well you’re assuming,” Louis says, before walking past Niall to get to the porch, heart hammering in his chest. He makes it out without Niall saying anything, without getting up. 

 _Shit, shit, shit thing to say._  Louis flicks his lighter and digs around in his pocket for his smokes. Might be better to not get stoned whilst Niall’s here. He gets clingy and usually clings to Niall if Niall’s around, and well.

So Louis smokes a regular cigarette as slowly as he can, scrolling through his Twitter timeline, barely reading tweets. He’s half way done when he hears the door roll open, the slide and thud of it closing back up. 

The chair next to him screeches when Louis shoves it out with his foot, as good of an invitation as any. Niall plops down, mouth all red from where he’s biting at it, bottom lip caught between his teeth. There’s still a flush pinking up his cheeks. 

He’s stupidly handsome. Louis thinks,  _that’s my best friend_ , but that’s it. There’s nothing else there. Nothing more. No expansive emotion that takes up all the room in his chest. No butterflies. 

He knows he loves Niall. It’s easy as breathing, couldn’t deny it if he tried. He knows he’d gladly spend the rest of his life in Niall’s company without second guessing that. 

He knows it’s never going to be anything more than that, because it’s never been anything more than that with anybody. And Niall might be the exception to a lot of rules, but no one is the exception to  _that_  one. 

He wants to snog Niall’s face off – reckons he always has – but he can’t offer more than companionship, maybe some orgasms if they were into it, and take-away for dinner more often than not.  

Niall probably deserves more than that, like Eleanor deserved more than that, like Danielle –

Niall kicks at Louis’ chair, jolting him. “You never said you wanted to kiss me,” Niall says, raising an eyebrow at Louis. Louis scowls,  rubbing the cherry of his smoke out in the ashtray. 

“Who doesn’t?” Louis asks, doing his best to sound grumpy about it. “Bet that friend of Harry’s would have kissed you.” Among other things that Louis  _isn’t_ thinking about because he doesn’t  _care_.

“Maybe.” Niall shrugs, guarded look on his face. Louis knows he doesn’t really… believe it. Niall thinks he’s average at best. It’s a damn shame. 

Which is why Niall definitely deserves to be loved. Rom-com loved, even. The whole lot of it. The warm and fuzzy feelings, the butterflies. Deserves someone who can tell him they love him – in a way that’s different from anyone else, a way that’s  _better_. 

He shouldn’t settle for anything less. 

“So what’s your endgame, then?” Niall asks, obnoxiously perceptive as always. “If dating and relationships aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”

Louis shrugs. 

He doesn’t really want to say. Doesn’t want to admit that he’s thought about it before. Thought about  _Niall_  like that before – as some sort of endgame for him. Thought about the both of them settling right here for like, forever if they can get away with it. He wonders if there’s a ceremony for that. Bros for life. Bros that build a life together and raise a… Raise a kid together. 

Louis rubs his face. His hand smells ashy. 

“I dunno,” he says, a bit grumpy. “I’m not even 27, I don’t pretend to have my shit together. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like when you wanna do shit like get married, or whatever –”

“Spend the rest of your life with someone,” Niall supplies, with a cheeky smile. 

“Yeah, well.” Louis shrugs softly. “Could do that with you, couldn’t I? Move you in, domesticate you. Doesn’t really change anything, like it wouldn’t change anything with someone I dated.”

“‘Cept snogging,” Niall reminds him. His cheeks are getting red again. 

“I mean, I would,” Louis says. “If you wanted to. If that was like, a fee for keeping you around, or whatever. I  _guess_  I could do that.”

“Or whatever?” Niall giggles, eyebrows wiggling. Louis wishes he had something to throw at his face. 

“What were we talking about again?” Louis says lightly, embarrassed. “No idea. Why are you here again?”

“‘Cause you like it when I’m here,” Niall says, sounding very sure of himself. 

“Eh.” Louis stands and stretches, deliberately doesn’t dwell on the way Niall watches him do it. It’s strange to be the focus of Niall’s attention like this. Like they might do something about this conversation after they have it. “Maybe.”

“Alright.” Niall sighs, getting up. When he stands, they’re eye-to-eye. Neither of them have grown in years. Niall takes a step forward, settles his hand on Louis’ hip and looks at him very seriously. “Pay up, then.”

“Sorry?” Louis asks, mouth dry. 

“My fee,” Niall says, rolling his eyes. “For sticking around.” He squeezes Louis’ hip gently, grinning. “A kiss.”

“Uhm,” Louis says, but Niall’s already leaning forward and pressing his lips to Louis’.

It’s dry, quick – a gentle pressure against Louis’ mouth before it’s gone and Niall’s stepping away, leaving Louis’ front cold without him. He grabs Louis’ hand, tugs him towards the door like nothing happened. Louis follows, a bit dazed. 

“I’m pretty sure I get it, Tommo,” Niall says, once they’re back inside. There’s golf on the telly since Louis is a pushover, and they’re both sitting in the middle of the couch, leaning against each other heavily. “Like, what you mean. About love.”

“Not sure I get it, lad,” Louis says quietly, trying not to sound too honest. He still doesn’t want to talk about it. It is what it is. “But I mean it about you sticking around.” He finds Niall’s hand and squeezes lightly, ignoring the way his pulse is so quick and unrelenting he can feel it in his palm.

“I know you were,” Niall says, shoving their shoulders together and smiling softly. “Always got your back.”

Louis snorts, but he can’t disagree. “I’m a lucky lad, then.” He has been for years. 

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/post/162890495262/lets-hang-out-to-the-death-nialllouis-19k)


End file.
